Audio recording systems can make use of more than one microphone to pick-up and record audio in the surrounding environment.
For example mobile devices or apparatus can be equipped with two or more microphones which offers a possibility to record multichannel audio, in other words to capture surround sound. The recording of ‘real’ surround sounds requires three or more microphones. However as well as the number of microphones the location or positioning of the microphones relative to each other and the surroundings is significant with regards to recording surround sound. For example a device with a fixed arrangement of microphones can be orientated in various directions, each of the orientations causing the device to have a distribution or arrangement of microphones which can limit the ability to record surround sound. For example the device can be located in landscape mode (in other words with a larger horizontal dimension) or portrait mode (with a larger vertical dimension) and the microphones thus effectively change position dependent on the orientation of the apparatus. The positioning of the microphones should be such that the plane defined by the microphone inlets should be as parallel as possible to the horizontal plane. For example some manufacturers use a threshold of within 45 degrees.